done without compensation

Horse the Band

Horse the band (often typeset as HORSE the band) is an experimental metalcore band from Lake Forest, CA. Their current keyboardist uses a Game Boy cartridge to achieve an 8-bit video game-influenced sound, a reason behind their tongue-in-cheek labeling of "Nintendocore".

Biography

The band booked its own self-managed (and self financed) tours starting the summer of 2002, including a 3-month orange tour spanning seven cities, in which most shows were unplanned and not promoted. Their highly energetic live performances, tendencies to play as many cities as possible while on tour, bizzarre on-stage antics, and off-kilter sense of humor eventually gained them a national audience. More recently they booked their own world tour, called EARTH Tour, spanning 45 countries.

Throughout 2006 the band toured with a diverse assortment of artists. It toured around the country with The Fall of Troy, Poison the Well, and Criteria. Then, a month after this tour finished on May 28, 2006, HORSE started a tour with Gatsby's American Dream, Portugal. The Man, and Forgive Durden.

The band dropped off of the tour early, proclaiming that the reason the members couldn't continue was because they were in Chicago eating pizza, and claiming that it was the best pizza they had ever eaten. After dropping out of the tour, the band went on to perform at the Warped Tour, as well as the Sounds of the Underground tour. During these tours, the band recorded Pizza and played shows with GWAR. The EP was released on September 5, 2006.

During the fall of 2006, the band has continued touring to support Pizza with All That Remains and DragonForce. The tour began in Los Angeles, California on September 8, 2006. After the tour finished, the band began writing its new album, and had hoped to have had it recorded by March 2007.

On Dec 25 2006, the band issued a special song for Christmas on its MySpace page entitled "A Partridge", a comical spin on the popular Christmas song "The Twelve Days of Christmas". According to a MySpace bulletin concerning the song, it was written and recorded in a single day.

In February 2007, during the recording of the band's next album, an official HORSE the band YouTube channel was started to display videos of the recording process. The channel quickly turned into a forum for the band to post episodes of its own drama "Lawrence and Friends," a show about a love triangle between a sugar cube, a suicidal pencil, and a postcard of Carla Hassett. The band has written a theme song for the show in its classic synthesizer fashion.

Early 2008 saw the band planning a world tour that would hit 40 countries starting in early March. The band stated "we've become disillusioned, bad-attitude nerds and pariahs of the established music industry. They asked for their fans' help booking shows in most locations, with no plans of bringing other bands along on the tour.

On February 17th, 2008 it was announced that Chris Prophet had left the band and that Jon Karel from The Number 12 Looks Like You would be filling in on drums during the world tour. In July, 2008 the band stated that long-time band friend Daniel Pouliot of Bleeding Kansas has joined as the band's full time drummer. Daniel had previously filled in as bassist in 2004 after the sudden departure of Andy Stokes.

Stage performance

HORSE the Band is known for their tremendously energetic live performances. When asked about their on-stage creativity in an interview with their bassist, Dashiell Arkenstone, he said that "[they] see a lot of bands, a lot of boring bands. [They] thought it would be rad to play in a forest surrounded by wildlife every night. And so they just went ahead with it. So, the stages they performed on during their last tour was filled with pseudo-shrubbery and lifelike stuffed animals that were sometimes brought to them by fans. In a July 2007 performance at Hartford's Webster Theater, Winneke arrived with his eyes swelled shut. He performed vocal duties backstage while the rest of the band continued in front, miking a stuffed tiger to "sit in" for their singer.

The fans' response is equally as energetic. It is customary that fans clap their hands above their heads during the song "Cutsman" to imitate the scissors above the head of the Mega Man boss Cut Man that the song references. Also catching on is the new pre-Cutsman-breakdown "dance" pose "The Phalanx", in which fans form a circle in the center of a mosh pit by getting back to back, moving clockwise, and bringing their hands above their heads to continue the traditional Cutsman hand-cutting style. Meanwhile, vocalist Nathan Winneke begins with the words "Cut, cut...". Another recent trend is the dance for the song The Red Tornado (Refers to the DC Comics character Red Tornado) in which fans enter mosh pits, extend their arms in complete opposite directions, and spin 360º to emulate the "tornado" image.

Song lyrics

HORSE the band's lyrics are chaotic and colorful metaphors for vocalist Nathan Winneke's life, often with humorous or "geeky" titles and bases. He once described his lyrics as "lynchian" referring to film director David Lynch.

The band had jokingly labeled themselves "Nintendocore" very early on in their career. Some such characters are metaphorically referred to include Cut Man from Mega Man, although the song is spelled "Cutsman"; Birdo, one of the bosses from the NES game Super Mario Bros. 2, in the song "Birdo"; and the rabbit-like nemesis from The Legend of Zelda in the song "Pol's Voice". Similarly, the song "A Million Exploding Suns" refers to the Marvel Comics character Sentry, a schizophrenic hero with this abundance of power. While these characters are certainly mentioned, the actual songs themselves have nothing to do with them. They are simply a metaphor to represent something else that Winneke has experienced in his lifetime.

2007's A Natural Death featured significant lyrical and musical evolution into the concepts of nature and mortality while moving slightly away from the Nintendo metaphors. The song "Murder" is inspired by the Western novel Lonesome Dove, in which a Native American named Blue Duck stalks and kills white settlers on the plains.

A Natural Death can be played infinitely and in a continuous loop. The last song, "Lif", ends with the sound of howling winds that open the album's first song, "Hyperborea". This may be a representation on the infinite progressive continuity of the cycle of life and death, in line with the main themes of the album. In this sense, it's very similar to Pink Floyd's landmark 1973 album, The Dark Side of the Moon, which begins and ends with the sound of a heart beating to symbolize life and death.

Current projects

March 5, 2008, the band started their EARTH TOUR. The band booked the tour themselves, and played mostly unpromoted shows in small venues in 45 countries, starting with Australia. Many performances where done without compensation. April 27 the band visited Belarus. They were one of the first American bands to visit the country in ten years, after Cannibal Corpse. Cannibal Corpse performed in a state circus, though HORSE the band performed at Step, a club which was formerly a cinema hall. Members of HORSE the band noted that the Belarussian audience was one of the most dynamic. Approximately 10% of the EARTH TOUR scheduled shows "fell through."

The band has also been filming Tour Journals for Earth Tour which are put on Youtube by filmer and director Gary Lachance. As of May 3 two videos have been released:

Australia Earth Tour 2008 Video #1

New Zealand Earth Tour 2008 Video #2

The videos have been said to be part of a new reality show for Fuse TV but there has not yet been word from Fuse confirming interest in a project with the band.

In June 2008, it was announced that HORSE the band has been dropped from Koch Records. Koch Records exercised its contractual prerogative citing the desire to cut unprofitable artists acquired during the take over of Combat Records.

HORSE the band will be writing a new album in the winter, record during the spring, and tour in the summer in support of the album as it is released.

Videography

"Bunnies"- R. Borlax
"A Million Exploding Suns"- The Mechanical Hand
"Lord Gold Throneroom"- The Mechanical Hand
"Birdo"- The Mechanical Hand
"New York City"- A Natural Death
"Murder"- A Natural Death

Members

Current members

Nathan Winneke – vocals
David Isen – guitar
Dash Arkenstone – bass guitar
Erik Engstrom – Synthesizer/LSDJ
Daniel Pouliot - drums

Former members

Andy Stokes – bass guitar, currently a member of Da Nest
Adam Crook – vocals
Eli Green – drums
Jason Karuza – drums
Alex Duddy - drums
Christopher Prophet - drums, currently a member of Mr. Misses
Mike Benitez - bass guitar

Discography

Scabies, The Kangarooster, and You demo (1999)
Secret Rhythm of the Universe CD (2001)
I Am a Small Wooden Statue on a Patch of Crabgrass Next to a Dried Up Riverbed EP (2001)
Beautiful Songs by Men EP (2002)
R. Borlax CD (2003, Pluto Records)
The Effing 69 World Tour tour footage DVD (2004)
The Mechanical Hand CD (2005, Combat Records)
Pizza EP (2006, Combat Records / LIF Records)
R. Borlax CD (re-release, 2007, Koch Records)
A Natural Death CD (2007, Koch Records)

References

Bonnie Johnson "Majoring in Rockstar Studies: Part I: 'HORSING' around". The Stanford Daily. .
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1509692/09152005/horse_the_band.jhtml
Andrew Parks "Horse the Band". Decibel Magazine. .
http://clubs.ccsu.edu/recorder/entertainment/entertainment_item.asp?NewsID=85